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District 9 sets the scene in 1980s South Africa with a spaceship forced to unexpectedly to hover over Johannesburg with fuel problems.
Holed up in the space craft are a million confused aliens. Not the flesh-hungry, world-ravaging monsters we’re used to being invaded by, but a horde of starving critters with nowhere to go.
Fast forward to the present and the ‘prawns’ – so called due to their lobster-like appearance – are being forcibly moved from their inner-city ghetto, District 9, to a camp out in the countryside.
Leading the operation is a contractor called Wikus (Sharlto Copley) who finds himself on the run after contracting a disease that sees his body change in alarming ways.
Comprised of news reports, talking head interviews and handicam footage, it’s a thinking man’s action movie that touches both on political and philosophical themes, and religious ones too.
Not that these meaty issues get in the way of the almost relentless thrills as Wikus takes on a squad of bloodthirsty soldiers, exploding heads leave gunk on the camera and whistling bullets place us right in the middle of it all.
What makes it all so watchable – and something Michael Bay completely missed with the Transformers sequel – is how we come to empathise with Wikus, a well-meaning and endearingly clueless hero for whom we come to care deeply.